


Holes in Judgement

by Leopardmask



Series: Glitch AU: What Goes Around Comes Around [1]
Category: Hermitcraft RPF
Genre: Gen, Glitch!AU, Glitches, Impulse's Bedrock Breaking Service, NB Iskall, Overwork, Transformation, disordered breathing, no beta we die like that one time Impulse tried to demonstrate his bedrock technique to Xisuma, part 1 of a series, season 7
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-05
Updated: 2020-12-05
Packaged: 2021-03-10 01:22:10
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,711
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27895999
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Leopardmask/pseuds/Leopardmask
Summary: Nobody’s perfect, even those who created the worlds. There are always flaws in the Great Code. Usually, they’re avoided, or ignored, and when the next update comes, those flaws are gone. Some, though, are exploited for Player benefit.With the most recent update, something about working with these glitches has changed. Work with them too long... and the world will start glitching you.Impulse has always preferred the liminal space above the Nether’s bedrock roof, instead of the fire and chaos below. He knows how to travel back and forth between the roof and the proper Nether, and is happy to do business with anyone else who might need passage.
Series: Glitch AU: What Goes Around Comes Around [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2042692
Comments: 21
Kudos: 87





	Holes in Judgement

Impulse took a few deep breaths. The hot, stuffy air did nothing to calm his nerves. He had done this a million times before, but the first breakthrough of a new Nether was still a little nerve-wracking and pretty unpleasant every time. Standing in a hand-dug cave of netherrack, the rough texture of bedrock above him, and basically everything nonessential tucked in an ender chest nearby, just in case something went wrong... this time, he even had one of the newly-discovered respawn anchors nearby, so he could come right back and try again if things went too horribly.

He lightly tossed an ender pearl into the meter-high gap he had made below a hopefully-thin part of the ceiling, and held his breath.

That breath was immediately squeezed out of him when the pearl landed. His entire head and chest were being crushed - no, not crushed, _invaded_ \- by coarse, sharp, unyieldingly solid rock. Somehow (he had never been sure how it was possible to even move while inside a solid object), Impulse pushed his arm upward, and as soon as he felt his hand leave the stone, he let another ender pearl fall. 

With a _vwoop,_ a comparatively barely-felt _thud,_ and a gasp of the startlingly thin Nethervoid air, he was free. Impulse flopped onto his back for a moment, just breathing, recovering, and taking in the expanse of red sky. Then he sat up, checked his coordinates, and got to work.

With practiced hands, Impulse set down obsidian, explosives, a single piston. He’d done this many times before, but still had no idea how it actually worked. Something about the piston pushing something it wasn’t supposed to be able to push, maybe. All he knew was that it _did_ work, most of the time. He connected a single lever to the piston and TNT, flicked it on, then dropped to the ground, lay on his back, and readied another piston, timing the sequence in his head.

The TNT exploded. As one piston was destroyed, Impulse replaced it with the other. He felt a slight sinking feeling in his gut, almost hidden behind the force of the explosion. When the bright spots cleared from his vision, Impulse rolled over, stood up, and checked his work. The piston was definitely not facing in the same direction that he had been trying to place it. That was a good sign. Impulse took the piston away to reveal... yes! A hole had been broken in the supposedly impenetrable bedrock, and he had in fact picked a spot thin enough to punch all the way through to the tunnel he’d made. Heat rose and steamed gently from below as it mixed with the thinner air.

Impulse hopped back down to grab his equipment. Something was weird about the fitting of his elytra, but he couldn’t quite put a finger on what. They were still working just fine, so he shrugged, adjusted them, and moved on. He made sure to mark the coordinates of the place, so he wouldn’t have to teleport himself into solid rock again for a while, then traveled the short distance back to the main hub, to reopen his bedrock-breaking service shop for anyone else who needed it.

\-----

“Impulse, you’re feeling alright, aren’t you?”

Impulse glanced over at Xisuma, who was leading him across the Nether roof to his next commission. “Yeah? I’m fine, why do you ask?”

“I’m just a tad worried,” Xisuma admitted. “I heard a rumor that something happened regarding exploits like you’re doing here, but I don’t know any details. Since you’re doing this for a living right now, I thought I’d check up on you.”

Impulse smiled as they reached the sign Xisuma had placed. “Well, I’m doing just dandy for now. Thanks for the concern, though.”

“‘Dandy’, I like that,” Xisuma laughed. “I guess I’ll leave you to it, unless you need me here for anything?”

Impulse shrugged. “No need, but you can stick around if you don’t want to make the trek back here later, as long as you stay out of the blast zone. Shouldn’t take long!”

\-----

“Wait, so you want a hole in the bedrock of the _Overworld?_ Why??”

Zedaph shrugged as he led Impulse through his base. “I've always wanted to visit the Undervoid. Got some experiments I’ve been meaning to do, that sort of thing. Here, down this ladder.”

Halfway down the ladder, a rung broke under Impulse’s foot. He yelped, suddenly finding himself hanging. “Zed!”

“Oh dear, that shouldn’t have happened,” Zedaph apologized. “Um... let me get out from under you and you can just glide down? There should be enough room for that.”

“I'd rather slide.” Impulse switched his grip to the sides of the ladder and rode that way to the bottom. “My elytra have been weird lately, it’s like every time I put them on the fit’s changed or something. I’m not sure I trust flying on them in tight spaces right now.”

After some friendly bickering about payment, Zedaph showed Impulse the spot that he thought was thin enough, and left to tinker with some other things while Impulse worked.

Impulse had quite a bit of bedrock to clear away, as it turned out, in order to fit the contraption that would break the final layer. Over the past few commissions in the Nether, he had realized that he could feel when an attempt had worked. That didn’t make the process go any faster, really, but it made each successful break that much more satisfying. Except that, while getting that confirmation was nice, the feeling sinking deeper into his stomach with every block was not nice. As soon as the last sequence was done, Impulse groaned and stumbled back to sit on a ledge, head to his knees.

He stayed there for a few minutes, until a concerned voice and hand on his back roused him. “Impulse? You good, man?”

Impulse raised his head to meet Zedaph’s eyes, then stood up and stretched. “Yeah, I just... needed a rest.”

“If you say so,” Zedaph replied. “I stopped hearing explosions, so I figured you were finished, yeah?”

“Yep,” Impulse smiled. “You can take away that piston if you want. There’s definitely a hole to the Undervoid there.”

The piston came away with a _foop,_ like uncorking a bottle, echoing lightly around the walls. A breeze rustled their clothes as Overworld air was drawn into the thinner Void, the slight humidity crystallizing into frost as it fell. Zedaph stared in awe.

“Wow...” Zedaph breathed. “How many people d’you think have even _seen_ the Undervoid?”

“Yeah,” Impulse agreed. “I’ve been around it a few times, but only in worlds that were modified to handle it being open, you know? Maybe be a _little_ careful around this, okay?”

“Oh, absolutely.” Zedaph gave Impulse a mock salute. “In fact-” He turned around and blocked the hole with stone. “There! No accidental falls around this pit until I’m good and ready for them.”

\-----

From that point on, the lingering sense of unease faded to be almost unnoticeable, but it never really went away. Impulse had a suspicion that he shouldn't have agreed to messing with the Undervoid. His elytra were still causing him problems, and while they were still functional, the harness never felt quite right against his chest. But Impulse was nothing if not persistent, and after a short while he had practically forgotten that anything was wrong, only reminded whenever he did a new commission and felt the same pressing unease more strongly as the bedrock disappeared. The explosion of the TNT hurt less each time, though. He wasn’t sure if the feeling was getting stronger by comparison, or if he was just being less affected by the explosions. Maybe it was both.

One day, Impulse got a call from Iskall.

Iskall’s request was the biggest Impulse had ever done. Iskall hadn’t realized, at first, quite how the process worked, but once Impulse explained, negotiations were made anyway for the destruction of a huge crater in the Nether roof. The final price was much lower than Impulse would normally have charged for the task, but still higher than Iskall could pay up front, so while Iskall went off mining for more diamonds, Impulse got to work.

It took hours and hours. A minute to set up the device, 8 seconds for the TNT to go off, repeat if it didn’t work, for every single block in around a 32-meter radius, three blocks deep. Impulse barely rested, only stepping away whenever his gut felt so heavy it might as well have been stone itself, or once when he accidentally blew up his supply box and had to go get more TNT. He had made a promise to Iskall, and he was determined to follow through, pushing himself farther than he ever expected.

Finally, he had a gaping, ragged pit in front of him. He was just cleaning up the edges, getting as much out as he could. He felt like crap and was starting to get a headache, but the TNT wasn’t hurting him at all, so what was the harm in going a little further? A little further. A little further...

The next block broke. Impulse pressed the heels of his hands to his eyes. As he stood up, every bad feeling he had ignored in the last few hours hit him at once. Black spots filled his vision. He swayed on his feet, once, twice. Then he fainted.

\-----

“Impulse? Impulse?”

Iskall peered through the Nether fog. They had come through one of the smaller holes to the roof, and could see the edges of their area just coming into view. Shulker boxes were still set up nearby, but... “Impulse? Where did you go? I have your diamonds...”

They came to the edge of the pit and _oohed_ in amazement. Impulse had done an amazing job. Iskall reminded themself that this was no ordinary TNT hole - this was _bedrock._

Something caught their attention, resting at the bottom of the netherrack hole below. Dark, unmoving, easy to miss - except for the bright yellow “i” emblazoned across it.

“Impulse?” Iskall gasped. They heedlessly dropped down into the pit, opening their elytra automatically for a brief moment to catch their fall. “Impulse, oh my gosh-”

They crouched next to Impulse and quickly tapped a command button on their eyepiece. It was nowhere near as advanced as Xisuma’s suit, but it could do a quick vitals scan and-

“Ohhhh no no no no,” Iskall muttered as the warnings flashed in front of them. “Oh, that’s... that’s very bad.” They switched modes, opening a private message to Xisuma in voice-to-text.

<iskall85> -> <Xisuma> HELP

<Xisuma> -> <iskall85> ? what’s wrong?

<iskall85> -> <Xisuma> ITS IMPULSE

<iskall85> -> <Xisuma> I’M IN THE NETHER

<Xisuma> -> <iskall85> Impulse?

<iskall85> -> <Xisuma> HE’S NOT BREATHING

<iskall85> -> <Xisuma> OR MOVING

<Xisuma> -> <iskall85> I’ll be right there

Iskall sat back on their heels. They noticed, now, that the skin around Impulse’s neck and arms, with streaks up onto his face, was darkened grey, almost like it had been burned. Had a ghast gotten up here somehow? Had one of the explosions gone horribly wrong? Impulse’s shirt was torn in places as well, revealing more dark grey underneath. The places where the grey met normal skin were... strange, though. They mixed and stretched in a way that Iskall had never seen before.

Xisuma popped into existence nearby, looked around, and strode toward them. “Oh, dear,” he murmured. Iskall could see text scrolling across the inside of Xisuma’s visor - probably a more detailed version of Iskall’s own scan.

Xisuma started to lift Impulse, but immediately dropped him and staggered back a step. “Oh my _goodness_ me. Um... okay. Okay, I’m going to have to teleport Impulse out of here and get him somewhere more comfortable. Where... you have an actual bedroom, right? May I take him there? I can come back and teleport you too if you want.”

Iskall gulped. Xisuma sounded very serious. “Y-yeah, that would be good. I want to know if he’s okay.”

“I do too,” Xisuma murmured, almost too quietly for Iskall to hear. In a more normal tone, he decided, “Right. I’ll be right back, then. Try not to panic, yeah?”

“Oh, I’m panicking,” Iskall replied. But Xisuma and Impulse were already gone.

\-----

Impulse blinked his eyes open, then immediately squinted them almost shut. He was surrounded by torchlight. And... wood. A curved wooden wall stretched over his head. Was he outdoors somewhere? He thought he saw a bee hovering in the corner of his vision-

“Ah! You’re awake! I’m so glad! Goodness me, you had us worried there.”

Impulse turned his head stiffly toward the voice. His eyes were adjusting to the light, and he could see now that it wasn’t a bee, but a bee-shaped helmet - Xisuma was sitting by his bed.

Also he was on a bed.

“Wh-” Impulse tried. He licked his lips. “I... I was in the Nether, wasn’t I? Did I die?”

“I thought you had, dude.”

Impulse turned to see Iskall also sitting nearby. That would explain the curving wooden room.

“You gave us quite the fright!” Xisuma exclaimed. “Iskall found you unconscious at the bottom of a hole you’d broken for him. You weren’t even breathing!” Xisuma frowned and checked some text on his visor. “...In fact, hmm. That’s odd. You, uh... still aren’t.”

“What??” Impulse sat up, automatically putting his hand to his chest, and immediately discovered several things. One, he did in fact not seem to be breathing, or apparently need to, since two, his entire torso was made of rough, dark grey stone, which had been revealed by him, three, not having a shirt on.

He sat there for a moment, chest perfectly still, hand idly exploring, mind racing. He could still talk, obviously, but then, so could someone like Jevin. Who even knew how. And most people didn't exactly keep track of their everyday breaths. But... now that he thought about it, he couldn't remember the last time he'd gasped in surprise, or sighed in frustration, or even found himself out of breath from exertion. Would it have been… when he first breached the Nether roof a few weeks ago, and freed himself from the suffocating teleport that got him there?

When was the last time Impulse had breathed?

Impulse glanced wildly back at Xisuma, eyes begging for an explanation.

Xisuma sighed, not quite meeting his gaze. “Remember what I told you a couple weeks ago, the rumors about exploits and glitches? I admit I forgot about it until we found you in that crater. I think all your business with going around and breaking bedrock has ended up with you being... glitched.”

“What does that even... mean?” Impulse asked, exploring his chest and shoulders. “Did I, like... break so much bedrock that I _became_ bedrock? That’s what this stuff is, isn’t it?”

“The actual effect is hard to explain to a non-admin, but essentially, yes,” Xisuma told him. “Under normal circumstances, it probably would have gone unnoticed for a long time, but with how much you were doing, it all sort of piled up on you. You probably passed out because the strain of all that happening at once was just too much for one person to handle.”

“So, really, it’s my fault,” Iskall asserted.

“It’s nobody’s fault, Iskall,” Xisuma reassured them. “You had no idea. Hell, even I didn’t really know what was happening, or what trouble might come of it.”

“Geez...” Impulse’s eyes wandered around the room. They fell on a glimpse of red, which quickly ducked back out of sight. He smiled and raised his eyebrows at Xisuma. “You aren’t the only ones here at the moment, I take it.”

Xisuma chuckled. “I told them to keep out, so of course they’ve been just around the corner. Alright, you two, you can come on in now! He’s awake!”

On cue, Tango and Zedaph tumbled into the tiny bed nook. Xisuma and Iskall stepped out to give them space.

Tango was of course instantly intrigued by Impulse’s bedrock skin. Impulse rolled his eyes and let Tango poke at him, instead turning his attention to Zedaph.

Upon seeing Zedaph’s face, Impulse grimaced despite himself. “Oh, man...” he lamented. “Not you, too?”

**Author's Note:**

> This is a new AU some friends and I are messing with! Eventually it'll become a little series... but in the meantime, enjoy this cliffhanger for like three weeks while You Walk The Path finishes up >:3c


End file.
